Power in organizations

1
Power in organizations

• Eero Vaara

2
Agenda

• Some dare call it power
• Different perspectives on power
• Language and the circuits of power
• Business planning as pedagogy

3
Different perspectives on power

• Power as causality
• Non-decision-making
• Ideology and real interests
• Disciplinary power
• A synthesis

4
Power as causality

• Theoretical roots
• Post-war political science in the US
• Problems with ambiguous concepts and methods in
  the analysis of power
• Robert Dahl
• Power is the ability to A make B do something
  that he/she would not otherwise do
• Focus
• event causality
• individuals
• behavior
• concrete situations

5
Non-decision-making

• Theoretical roots
• Post-war political science in the US
• Problems with the conventional views
• Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz
• Non-decision-making
• A devotes his/her energies to creating or
  reinforcing social and political values and
  institutional practices that limit the scope of
  the political process to consider only specific
  issues
• In this way, B is hindered in raising issues
  that would be detrimental to A

6
Non-decision-making (cont.)

• Focus
• non-issues
• invisible structures and processes
• Three ways of working
• A does not listen to or hear the concerns of B
• The rule of anticipated reaction B anticipates
  As negative reaction and thus does not raise the
  issue
• Mobilization of bias the dominant can define
  rules of the game so that only some concerns can
  be raised or even be thought of ...

7
Ideology and real interests

• Theoretical roots
• Political science, sociology and philiosophy
• Marxism
• Steven Lukes Three dimensions of power
• A radical view of power
• People can live in false consciousness and not
  be aware of their real interests setting these
  interests is the final dimension of power
  analysis

8
Ideology and real interests (cont.)

• Power of A over B A influences and shapes Bs
  consciousness about the existence of inequalities
  through the production of myths, information
  control, ideologies etc.
• Rebellion of B
• Susceptibility to myths, legitimation of
  ideologies
• A sense of powerlessness
• A uncritical or fragmentary consciousness
• An epistemological and methodological problem
  what are real interests?
• Post-structuralist hegemony as an alternative
  theoretical perspective (e.g. Ernesto Laclau and
  Chantal Mouffe)

9
Disciplinary power

• Theoretical roots
• Post-structuralism (centrality of language,
  relational nature of all totalities, practices of
  linguistic signification, decentering of human
  constitutive subject, concern with discourse)
• Problems with structural analysis of power
• Michel Foucault
• Disciplinary power
• Different kinds of discursive practices (talk,
  text, writing, cognition, argumentation,
  presentation) constitute subjectivities and
  social order in everyday activities this leads
  to the disciplining of bodies,regulating of the
  mind and ordering of emotions

10
Disciplinary power (cont.)

• According to this view, power is a
  two-way-street
• A and B both have power over each other
• Something seen as resistance is an inherent part
  of power relations
• Power can be both negative and positive
• Focus
• Practices not individuals
• Historical or genealogical analysis
• The micro-politics of power
• Bio-power Subjugation of bodies and control of
  populations in general

11
A synthesis

• Stewart Clegg The circuits of power (1989)
• Three levels of analysis
• Episodic power relations
• Rules of practice (fixing relations of meaning
  and membership)
• Domination